Just over a week ago I posted the report below because I am so consciouse of the effects that the Tories’s approach to the National Health Service could have on the low and middle income people I represent in Egremont, Seacombe, Poulton and Somerville. Things have certainly moved fast in a week – and not very well for the Tories. The newspapers are increasingly open about the damage to its own popularity the Tory-led government is creating for itself.

The Bill seeking to change Labour’s NHS so fundamentally is back in the Lords on 8th Feb. The Government seem to be on the defensive. “Yougov” has just published the results of a new survey on public attitudes to the NHS and its reforms, with a sample size of 1884. Here are some of the highlights:

36% trusted the Coalition to deliver high quality NHS services, but a startling

57% didn’t trust the government “much or at all”.

Could you?

A full breakdown by political party support, gender, age, social group and region is available at:

A higher percentage of the British public opposes the Government’s plans to restructure the NHS than supports them, and faith in the Coalition’s ability to deliver NHS services is sinking. After all didn’t the Tories go into the general election with slogans that they could be ‘trusted’ with the NHS? Who believes that now?

Cllr Chris Jones gives her opinion of the government’s NHS proposals

On 22nd January Chris reported:

Following years of neglect under Tory governments, Labour invested heavily in replacing crumbling buildings and increasing nurse and doctor numbers to rebuild the National Health Service. Most residents of the Wallasey Riverside area, covering from Seacombe to New Brighton, would agree that we are now well served with excellent local medical practices, backed up by top class Wirral hospitals. But we have not yet met anybody on the doorstep who believes what this Tory-led government is now doing to the NHS is acceptable.

Follow the link below to read Angela’s summary in November. The latest developments show her view was spot on.

Labour created the National Health Service during the economic aftermath of Hitler’s war when Britain faced economic re-construction with burdens greater even than the Bankers’ gambling-debt crisis we are all now being forced to pay for. It was created in the face of dogged opposition from the Tories. So what’s changed?

Health is the most important element of every person’s ‘wealth’. Isn’t there something fundamentally unwholesome about the privatisation of health provision into profit inspired businesses?

Last week the pressure on Lansley increased when official health department data revealed that the number of patients not being treated within the 18-week time limit has soared by 43% since the Tory/LibDem coalition took office. Led by the Doctors’ organisation “The British Medical Association” a meeting has been called of all 20 members of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. Along with the nurses’ and midwives’ unions, these health professionals are calling loudly for the bill to be scrapped.

The meeting comes as one of Downing Street’s advisers on the NHS, Professor Chris Ham, King’s Fund health thinktank chief executive, warns that growing disquiet across the medical establishment “could become an NHS version of the Arab spring”.

Despite the Tories’ attempts to personalise politics, with rather silly jibes at individuals, we believe the people of the UK will no more forgive the collaboration government of LibDems and Tories, for their policies towards the NHS, than they will for their closeness to the bankers who plunged the world into its present economic chaos.

This ‘Health Policy Insight’ article provides excellent information, well worth reading for anyone who believes in the NHS

Central Park, standing at the edge of Seacombe and Egremont on the one side, with Liscard on the other, is a key public asset.

Cllr Adrian Jones & Mrs Di Ledder met Council Officers, who came up with remedies at a meeting this morning.

When the Tory/LibDem collaboration, in control of Wirral until last May, sought the reduction of some 1100+ council jobs our Central Park Ranger, who left early under one of the schemes of ‘encouragement’ to go, was among them. He was popular and dedicated, well known for working far beyond the call of ordinary duty; we all wished him well for his early retirement, but we certainly miss him.

The public were left with the impression that the deletion of such posts would occur only if they did not adversely affect front line services. But were people under the care of Social Services in Central Park not ‘front line’? Following the deletion of our Ranger’s post they found themselves without organised means to open the buildings they were using, in the morning, or to secure them afterwards, or even to have the lavatories cleaned.

This picture of Mrs Di Ledder was taken in the Park, with Cllr John Salter, when the improvements to the children's playground were being done.

The attractive Walled Garden was no longer open to the public unless the volunteers, or their carers, or Social Services staff, found ways to get it done. And with the retirement of our Ranger it was also closed to the public and to visitors on weekends. Not exactly good news for the ‘Leisure Peninsula’?

With no Council arrangements put in place for the lavatories to be cleaned that, too, fell by default to Social Services Staff and volunteers. Whoever else felt it was acceptable, it was not acceptable to your Seacombe Labour Councillors.

“What”, readers might ask, “was the rationale for not making arrangements for the buildings and the Walled Garden to be unlocked and secured, and for the lavatories to be cleaned?” That would be for the previous administration to explain. Your Labour Councillors are just getting on with the business of having it put right.

Happier times are back again

Meanwhile, the privatisation shadow has been lifted and our Parks have returned happily to public maintenance, with our professional officers able once more to arrange for the buildings to be opened for the volunteers and Social Services Staff to work unhindered; for the lavatories to be cleaned, and for our Walled Garden to be re-opened to the residents of Wirral who, by the way, own it.

We will not publicly name Council Officers, not even in a ‘good news’ story such as this, but with great pleasure we can report our sincere thanks to them for the professional manner in which they were able to put remedies in place at a meeting in the Town Hall this morning. No such thanks would be complete without recognising the wealth of advice given by Mrs Di Ledder, who chairs the Central Park Partnership.

During the general election campaign Wallasey’s Labour MP, Angela Eagle, drew attention to the potential threat facing Labour’s Sure Start Centres if the Tories were to be elected.

Here in Seacombe Labour's 'Sure Start' has been a huge success.

That produced howls of protest from local Tories – insisting that Sure Start would be safe under them. But the national picture has been as Angela predicted – one of growing pressure on councils that are now cash-strapped by government cuts.

While the unions continue to protect low paid workers, under the most hostile government in memory, ‘Unite’ members, and others, look forward to the Union’s North West Conference ‘Save Manchester Sure Start’ on 7th January.

‘Unite’ says it is organising this conference because the Con-Dem Coalition Government will be pushing for even more cuts in 2012. The Conference will provide a forum where Trade Unions, Charities, voluntary sector organisations, students and community-based campaigns can share information and build even stronger opposition to the cuts that so badly damage our public services and communities.

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